


The Tourists

by DesdemonaKaylose



Series: The Post-apocalyptic World of Tomorrow [5]
Category: Hanna Is Not A Boy's Name, Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Episode Style, M/M, Post-Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-14
Updated: 2014-07-14
Packaged: 2018-02-08 01:17:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,664
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1921173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DesdemonaKaylose/pseuds/DesdemonaKaylose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Visitors arrive in Night Vale for the first time in months, and they are concerned--no, not concerned. Suspicious. Plus an apocalypse threat level update and a look at traffic.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Tourists

**Author's Note:**

> Takes place during year two of the Hannapocalypse series, some time after the ongoing canon events of WTNV

Close your eyes, put out your hands, and come home to wherever your feet have taken you.

Welcome to _Night Vale_.

Dear listeners, strangers have arrived in Night Vale for the first time in many months.  Madeline LeFleur, head of the Night Vale Tourism Board, is dizzy with excitement. She is attempting to stand, hands shaking like two diseased leaves clinging to the limbs of a blighted forest, and she is collapsing to her knees as the room spins, and spins, and a poster is breaking loose from the wall with a sudden papery shout—

Oh. Nope. Looks like Madeline is actually fine. The room is _literally_ spinning. She should probably get building management on the line.

The strangers are a quartet, a study in contrasts. There is a small, lively man in the company of a looming, dusty one. The small man has a smile that is bright, in the same way that the stars are bright—piercing, white, an unshakable pinprick of determination in a vast crushing nothingness. His companion is gracefully unsettling, dark and quiet like the moment before a twilight rockslide. They are at ease in each other’s company, in the way of old friends or of strangers who have both decided—independently, deliberately—that they will say nothing at all to one another.

The remaining two hover at the doorway, glancing back and forth between their friends and the dull cockpit of their battered ship.

The automobile they have parked at the scorched edge of the empty lot, future home of the Night Vale opera house, is a hulking dusty beast. It has wheels, and windows, an inside it has gears and pistons, but it is alive in a way that few machines will ever be. Imagine a great dragon, gold and clanking and rumbling with low flames—this should not be difficult for those of you who have met former mayoral candidates Hiram McDaniels—now imagine that monster battered by time and scarred from countless battles, scales beaten to dullness, rusty at the joints, bleary eyed. Underneath the dust of age, the muscles remain powerful, coiled, and unstoppable.

Of the remaining two, the blond man is glancing about uneasily, his expression grim, as if he has heard a whispered voice addressing him from the darkness. His face is lined, and the lines speak of cruel smiles, but he is not a cruel man. He is… a hard man. His life, but more importantly his choices, have made him hard.

The second of two, the dark-haired man, is pale. He is nervous. He has very rarely been anything other than pale and nervous in the short, tangled length of his life. His features are preternaturally smooth; they are the soft, young features of a person who has felt nothing with any real power. But he is not young, not anymore, and he has felt deeply enough to score the trenches of ragged, glacial rivers.

They are concerned.

No, not concerned. _Suspicious_.

So, I dunno, maybe they’re take a bus tour or something before they go. We can only hope!

An update on our on-going Level Four Apocalypse Alert System Warning.  The Alert rating has dropped from mauve to ochre today, as the Department of Economic Statistic’s black magicians average in the newest numbers. They are reporting that farmers in Idaho have now settled on a potato-standard currency which is strengthening the overall solidity of the cash-goods continuum in the North American Continent. They are also reporting that they have switched their numbers-gathering methods to a mix of surveys, IRS public documents, and blood sacrifices. The surveys, they say, will greatly increase the accuracy of the numbers.

I am sure this will come as a great relief to our various citizens employed in the service industry, which has been so slow lately. It is always such a regret when poor national standards force good men and women to leave their jobs. John Peters—you know, the farmer—has offered to employ any such unfortunate citizens on his farm for a generous compensation of all the rocks, dirt, and delicious plump crows you can take home. TV repairmen, semi-truck drivers, state government workers, and transient mafia hitmen are all welcome.

Listen, I know times are tough folks, but we _all_ knew this was coming. Now it may not be the way you’d like to live your life, but we all have to make adjustments in the face of the capricious cosmos’ inexorable whims. We’ll just have to tighten our belts and soldier on, like our hardy pioneer ancestors. We will be wary, detail-oriented, and thrifty, like our hardy pioneer ancestors. We will sacrifice the children of non-believers to the eldritch beasts of the desert in return for life-sustaining produce, the origins of which we will never think about and _never question._ Just like our hardy pioneer ancestors. And we will do this, as we do all things: until the time when it is no longer necessary.

The Apocalypse Alert System Warning will, of course, be in effect until the sobbing dissolution of recognizable society and its subsequent replacement by an unrecognizable future society, teasingly hinted at by time travelers in the 1980’s, at which point the alert will fade into an equally unrecognizable background hum in an already clamorous reality.

More on our mysterious visitors.

The small man, with his piercing smile and his flyaway red hair, has begun interviewing any citizen he encounters about such day-to-day oddities as the public transportation system, the Subway, and the small dog with the sawn-off pole of a billboard impaled, innocuously, through its midsection as it scavenges from dumpsters. Perhaps he is a reporter. Perhaps he is a novelist. Perhaps he is none of these things, but rather a creature for whom human curiosity is a continuous process of questions breeding questions, casting aside any gathered answers like so much respiratory waste.

The small man asks about the black velvet shroud over city hall, which is coming down now as the sun drifts below the horizon with a resentful but muted buzz. He asks about hotels. He is directed to a nearby Motel 8 by a slack jawed, bloodless specter. The tall, dark man tightens his hold around his companion’s arm, staring at the specter as if warning it of some terrible, potential future. He has only shifted a few muscles to make this expression, but his minimalist message manages to convey that there are many things he can accomplish with only a limited number of muscles, and none of them will be pleasant. The specter understands this. The specter knows this silent language. It is a language that they share by necessity and nature, which the tall, dark man inherited through his own womb-less birth. 

He is, of course, dead himself.

 

And Now, Traffic.

There is not a Cadillac.

It is not driving the congested streets of a city where pedestrians will pause in their journeys to unknowable destinations from unremembered places to look at it, momentarily forgetting the quotidian practicality of their lives in favor of soft, warm jealousy. Other drivers will not watch it turn with wistful sighs, children will not streak their buttery fingers over its smooth curves. It is not glinting, freshly washed, like a wedding ring among rocks in a parking lot somewhere on the north side.

There are no streets or parking lots for it to ride through. There is only dark mud at the bottom of cold rivers, and silence, and the distant pressure of the ravenous ocean which will one day consume all things.

There is not a Cadillac, and the force of this nothingness has affected the world in violent and unpredictable ways.

This has been: Traffic.

 

The blond man and his dark haired friend move quickly through our town, east in the direction of the terrible empty hull of the numbers station. They are friends, although they are not yet certain of the truth that their own bodies betray—they have not learned to read the language of their own feet and shoulders, stumbles and sighs. As they sat together in their vehicle, they were uneasy with the fact of their proximity. Now, moving again, at last, the uneasiness has evaporated.

They are running, the dark-haired man taking two steps for his companion’s every one, ducking past the day’s last shoppers and joggers. The blond man bumps shoulders and checks hips as he goes, the dark-haired man twirls and leans to avoid contact, grimacing as he performs his polite dance. His feet tap, tap, tap; he is more graceful than he realizes, able to fly only when he has forgotten that he doesn’t believe in that sort of thing.

They pass the Ralphs, the Pinkberry, the sporting goods store which is a front for World Government. They have done this before, although never in a place quite like this.

The blond man follows a trail in the air, he sniffs—metaphorically, and literally too—and peers, and turns corners. As he lopes forward, the shop doors hang open to catch a wind from the north, and the dim shallows beyond them whisper into the falling night. They are all whispering the same thing. He can hear their faint chorus in the orange half light of the evening.

He can hear them, certain now that his trail is hot, he can hear them saying something—

About the weather

* * *

 

[ [The Weather](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJi2qOtecGY) ]

* * *

 

Listeners, we have a couple surprise guests in the studio with us this evening.

Gentlemen, who don’t you introduce yourselves?

 

 

> Guest 1: What—me? Why do I have to [PAUSE] Fine. Sure. Whatever. Uh, hi, I’m Conrad Achenleck, and this is Doc Worth.

A doctor? Well that is exciting. We’re a great supporter of the sciences here in Night Vale.

 

> Guest 1: No offense, but it looks more like you’re a great supporter of MC Escher. Did you know your stairs are a dimensional paradox? They’re—they’re literally a Mobius. And there’s only three of them.

Yes well, I’ve been lobbying station management for a ramp since 2011 but it’s a little bit difficult to effectively read a petition _through_ a closed door.

 

> Guest 1: what does—why would—look, let’s focus here. How do you know everything that’s going on as it happens?

Please, Mr. Achenleck, as flattering as it is to be the interviewee for once, let’s try to stick to convention. Your friend, there, should really sit down.

 

> Guest 1: Who, Worth? He’s not my friend.
> 
> Guest 2: Aww, sweetheart, yer gonna hurt my feelins

Doctor, do have a seat. I had Intern Marty bring in a spare just for you.

 

> Guest 2: look buddy, I dunno what ya are ‘r what ya want with us, but I sure as hell ain’t sittin’ down till I get ter the bottom of this.

Oh, please, don’t touch that. It has teeth.

 

>  Guest 2: ‘S got wh—ah. …Teeth.

So, gentlemen, have you had a chance to sample any of Night Vale’s many scenic tourist attractions? There’s a _breathtaking_ view of Radon Canyon—

 

> Guest 1: you already know where we have or haven’t been! You were narrating the whole time!

So that’s a no, then. Well Ms. LeFleur left these pamphlets with us a while back in case we happened to—

 

> Guest 2: what’re you _hidin’_? If thissus some kinda trap, it ain’t gonna be pretty.

Trap? Oh dear. I hope you’ve haven’t gotten that impression, I promise that the mini-golf course is popular even with Night Vale natives, and I would be more than happy to recommend you some reasonably priced, locally owned restaurants. Was it our Yelp reviews? We had some difficulty with a few hard-to-please tourists a few years ago after the giant spider infestation.

 

> Guest 1: yee…eees, we are worried about your _Yelp_ reviews, which we accessed with our miraculously apocalypse-proof wireless internet providers

Oh, you have AT&T too? We weren’t sure if that was just us.

 

> Guest 1: what

Excellent question! Intern Marty is a little busy at the moment fixing the coffee machine out there—hi marty!—but when he’s done I’ll have him run down to the library and look into it for you.

 

>  Guest 1: he’s… I was… Your intern is doing that _entirely_ the wrong way!

I’m sure he knows what he’s doing. He’s an intern. They know coffee.

 

> Guest 1: no, he should be putting the—that’s not where that goes! Mr—Mr. Marty, would you—can you hear—oh, this is _ridiculous._ Worth, take over here, I’m going to fix this.

Well, your friend certainly has strong feelings about coffee.

 

> Guest 2: ya heard the man, I ain’t his friend.

Hmm. Yes. It is so difficult when they won’t call you back, isn’t it?

 

> Guest 2: yer windin’ me up here, aren’t ya

Please, doctor, I am a radio professional. But, at the risk of becoming too much a part of your story, I do sympathize. When they’re not interested, they’re just not interested. There’s not much short of arabesque blood magic that can change a person’s mind—or, I suppose, a lengthy reeducation process, but the authorities would never get mixed up in the personal affairs of their constituents.

 

> Guest 2: wot the fresh hell ‘re ya goin’ on about?

Well… not to put it indelicately, but… you have a crush, don’t you?

 

> Guest 2: the _hell_ I do

Are you sure? I mean, it’s _pretty_ obvious.

 

> Guest 2: what it is or isn’t ain’t yer business

 It’s a human interest piece. Naturally it’s everyone’s business.

 

> Guest 2: you keep yer human interest out of my business or I’ll rip it off ya

That… is an effective if ambiguous innuendo. Um. Oh, look, your friend is shaking the coffee machine. Is he chanting? He looks like he might be chanting.

 

> Guest 2: nah, I’d wager that’s plain old swearing a red streak

Well the station certainly seems to think it’s chanting. Listeners, the linoleum has begun to vibrate ever so slightly, and there is a faint darkness in the hall beyond the studio that is not of this world. Conrad Achenleck does not seem to notice. He is shaking the coffee machine still more frantically, his lips are opening and shutting in a strange shifting rhythm, and if indeed he is cursing the coffee machine then it is probably for the best that this room is sound-proofed, because we certainly couldn’t air anything like _that_ on the radio.

I am afraid that he may be beginning to waken the ire of station management with his careless disregard for office property and terms of warranty. Intern Marty has ducked for cover underneath a shelving unit, he is putting his hands on his head, he is covering himself with pages from the literary masterpiece _Hawksong_ and mouthing to us in the booth “Do. _Something.”_

Listeners, Doctor Worth has pushed out his chair and is leaving the booth, expression grim, he is turning and glaring at me with cold eyes the color of our planet’s thin atmospheric skin, he is sighing—

[shouting and rumbling, interspersed by eerie high pitched notes] 

and he has left the booth.

Listeners, I do not know if we are about to play host to a pitched battle between the stalwart forces of our wild spinning Earth and the implacable terrors of the void, or if we will all leave this building tonight as we are now: whole, sane, and nervous about the unknowable truth of our continued existence. But, consider this.

There is only _so much_ you can do in the face of incompatible emotions. Love, often like a sleeper rolling in an exhausted daze away from her shrieking alarm, may not want to listen to you. You have to own that.

Be satisfied with what you have. People may come around eventually, people may not. You can’t make them do anything.

Stay tuned next for extradimensional violence and existential uncertainty.

Good night, Night Vale. Good night.


End file.
